


In Which a Doomed Red Romance Runs Its Course, or A Lesson in the Consequences in Disobedience to the Empire Taking Place in a Higher Caste Relationship Between Two Troll of Rivaling Opinion.

by locrianrose



Series: Falling stars [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 16:57:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6762385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/locrianrose/pseuds/locrianrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You notice things, and you always have. Perhaps that’s just your lusus’s influence, but you think that if things weren’t that way then you wouldn’t have managed to live as long as you have. The other trolls of your caste fear you, think that you’ll be culled for trying to rise above your station, trying to do something that they claim to think that you are not good enough to do, but you defy and disprove them.</p><p>You rise so much higher than they ever could have, and you burn so much brighter than any before have, and when the Church sends the first of its lackeys to bring you in you go with them, but when one dares to touch you he is killed before you could lay a hand on him for yourself. It is then that you learn that the Highblood himself has found an interest in you, a heretic of such putrid blood who dares to raise so far, and when you encounter him in a bloody hall you stand up straight and as tall as you can and you meet his gaze and he laughs at you and your impudence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Which a Doomed Red Romance Runs Its Course, or A Lesson in the Consequences in Disobedience to the Empire Taking Place in a Higher Caste Relationship Between Two Troll of Rivaling Opinion.

You notice things, and you always have. Perhaps that’s just your lusus’s influence, but you think that if things weren’t that way then you wouldn’t have managed to live as long as you have. The other trolls of your caste fear you, think that you’ll be culled for trying to rise above your station, trying to do something that they claim to think that you are not good enough to do, but you defy and disprove them.

You rise so much higher than they ever could have, and you burn so much brighter than any before have, and when the Church sends the first of its lackeys to bring you in you go with them, but when one dares to touch you he is killed before you could lay a hand on him for yourself. It is then that you learn that the Highblood himself has found an interest in you, a heretic of such putrid blood who dares to raise so far, and when you encounter him in a bloody hall you stand up straight and as tall as you can and you meet his gaze and he laughs at you and your impudence.

That’s the first time. The next time you’ve been assigned to cooperate with the Church but you know more than anyone else that you’re only there to prove to the Lowbloods that someone of your status could only ever be a tool for betters, but when the rouge psiioniic rises up and strikes down the clowns, you’re miraculously the only one standing at the end, cane stained with yellow blood and burns across your chest that mimic where the lights had burned from the other’s eyes. There are more of the clowns there within the hour and they take you with them, roughly shoving you along as you refuse to falter, refuse to show them any weakness that will tell them that they’d be right to cull you and leave you with the other dead.

You refuse to allow your lusus to come even as she feels your pain, and she understands, lends you her strength and determination because you are her’s, and she will not allow you to fall to this.

The Highblood questions you. Asks why his own servants failed, asks why a gutterblood survived and they didn’t. (For not the first time, you’re faced with the irony of being considered royal by the lowbloods, but yet still treated as filth by those of higher castes. The Highblood seems to be no exception to that norm.)

When he asks you that, you force yourself to speak and ignore the burns, meeting his gaze and telling him that you’re not sure why the agents of the Messiahs themselves would fail and he laughs again and calls you a blessed heretic.

You stumble in the door to your hive after all that, and your lusus nervously sniffs at the burns and you reassure her, for you’re alive now and that’s more than you could have hoped for before all of this. She’s not much help in the process of bandaging them, but when you’re finally done and half laying in your recuperacoon and she rests her great head next to yours, you’re finally able to rest for a moment.

The next night you’re informed that you’ve been transferred to serve under the Highblood as a servant of the Messiahs and a representative of the law. None of your colleagues will meet your eyes when you leave, and you know that in their minds, you are already dead and splattered across walls where you’ll never be missed by any. Your lusus is furious in the back of your mind, and her fury guides you to stand strong and helps to refuse the poking and prodding of the juggalos who seem to think you’re the greatest joke that they’ve yet heard.

The Highblood himself deigns to see you, and you meet his gaze again, refusing to falter, your lusus helping you to stand strong even with the pain that still remains, and something in you is fiercely proud that you refuse to bow to him, to anyone, and by some miracle, goodness forbid that you use the term, he allows it.

That is a victory on your part.

You have won that much, and you will not allow him to forget that, this insanity on your part that prevents you from groveling as those of his caste think that you should.

For some reason, he calls you to assist him more than once. You cannot see why, but you are not simply there to be made an example of and it puzzles you, irritates you. You continue to prove to him why you should be there, why you are a troll that they should trust and not doubt, and you do his work for nearly a sweep before something in you snaps, full or irritation that you're being forced to do this clown's bidding, rank or not, and in the late hours of the night your glare breaks through your composure and you simply snap at him in a reply to a causal question and then it takes a single touch and then the two of you are far closer together than your lusus would want for you, but you do want this, fiercely so, and you are more than willing and he allows it.

It isn't until the day begins and the light would have slipped into your hive had you been there, tucked soundly under your lusus's wing that you slow and stop and think, but by then the two of you are entangled and he's absently tracing the scars that you would have been culled for had they been seen when they were still healing and you've got a hand tangled in his hair in a possessive manner that is far from appropriate for someone of your caste and neither of you would dare to stop the other in this moment.

You remain that way, hiding away from the daylight with him, and for some reason, it fits more than anything else ever has, sans the way that your lusus's mind has always intertwined with yours. He is yours, a highblood who could order your execution in less than the time it took your bloodpusher to beat, but you know that he will not because he has had and passed so many chances to do so already, and you are his, and his throat is bared before you as you carefully settle yourself with him. It's so very near to perfect that in that moment you are so you and he looks at you in such a way that you very nearly want to trust him, to confide completely in him, but your lusus reminds you in the back of your mind of the danger that you're in, and you instead settle for curling against his body, letting your hands and mind wander.

The next night, he is uneasy in a way that the Highblood should never be, but you approach him as you do every night, and he is reassured by your actions, and you by his. It's a strange kind of perfect, but you cling to it as much as you can because again, he is yours now, and nothing will change that. You shouldn't be his equal, but for now, you are and he has accepted you as that and it is exhilarating to feel the power of being treated as an equal and to not feel the need to fight for that right. You have earned this.

He calls you a miracle during the day and you're reminded of the first time that he slew one of his own who attempted to lay a hand on you, and you feel safe in the oddest of places.

At night, the two of you are as sharp as ever, and you can see that he relishes in what he does, and in your own way, you come to see the pride in what he does that you’d denied before, and how he chooses to fight to protect his Empress and that is something that you decide to admire because it is loyalty and care like what he shows for you, and your bloodpusher burns inside of you for him.

You don't let that dull your blade—if anything, it sharpens it, increasing your devotion and desire for justice and to follow the laws that you swore to dedicate yourself to. In a way, you suppose that you are still an example, but one of what you’ve always striven to be, and when the drones come you’re no longer forced to resort to half made connections, and for this time, in this moment, you find yourself so flushed for him and he for you that things simply go as perfectly as they could and things are sharper and clearer than they’ve ever been before.

This continues. You’re feared, and you’re grateful for that. You come to like the respect and power that you feel, and it is what you see as good.

The slightest of things shifts your mind. It’s just another lowblood—something that you’ve learned not to worry about. A rustblooded troll who’ll have such a  short life that you don’t know why you’re bothering, but one that you’ve been tasked with bringing in for interrogation. The sign’s something small, two circles that are linked together in a shape that you can’t remember seeing before.

Later, you’ll regard that moment and your insatiable curiosity as the reasons for your downfall. Right now though, you’re going to ignore the troll’s pleading for mercy, because you know that justice can have no mercy. The interrogation gives you little information until the end when the other troll is weeping and the begging has nearly ceased. He comes then, entering the room with the full force of his Chucklevoodoos that refuse to touch you, ordering you to leave the room. You do, but before you can go, you catch some of the troll’s dying words as they fall.

When you visit him next, there’s a new splash of blood on the floor by his throne, and you ignore it. He questions you, asking for information and what you may have learned, and something, you don’t know what, causes the pendant to slip your mind, perhaps exhaustion or your missing your lusus after so long away, but no matter the cause, you manage to satisfy his questions, and when you return to the rooms that you occupy it’s still slipped into your pocket, remaining there as a reminder.

You don’t throw it away. Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn’t. No matter the reason, you keep it, tuck it somewhere that you’re sure it would be safe and return to the nightly norms and routines.

This is when you notice that he’s hiding something. You don’t know what or why, but you’re forbidden from continuing the case. For the first time in nearly a sweep, the two of you truly fight, ending with you storming from the room, fuming and furious and feeling vaguely pitch for your matesprite. It’s entirely unwelcome, but when he comes to your rooms later you see the uncharacteristic worry and how he brushes your fears away, whispering words to you late into the day as the two of you lay of the dangers of heresy and the words of the Messiahs, preaching his sermons to you as if his words alone might be enough to save you.

The next night, as you’re sitting alone and studying the shape of the pendant you muse to yourself that perhaps you would need saving from his Messiahs if that was what you held in the forefront of your mind, if they were the ones who you truly followed, but justice is your guide and always has been, and even if he orders you to abandon the case you will not. You will follow it, and justice will be served, either way it demands that you go.

Your search takes you far, and with it comes a distance that there’s never been between the two of you before. It’s easy to dismiss a trip to search as a visit to your lusus, and with a creature such as yours, he’s willing to accept that you might need to attempt to pacify it. It’s a resource to him, and one that you’ve used before on behalf of your justice. 

Now, however, it’s an excuse to allow you to travel to a hidden cave surrounded by creatures that you wouldn’t want to face without your lusus at your side, and inside you find what you’ve been searching for. It’s an oliveblood, wrinkled and ancient, mind nearly gone but present enough to grasp your hand and drag you to the pictures on the walls when you show her the pendant.

There’s so much there, and you stare that the scenes she’s depicted—the differing trolls, all working together and cooperating in ways that you would only imagine seeing in a heretical work of banned fiction, but yet they are here, shown and more visible than you could ever imagined.

Something about it makes sense—you remember the treatment you received from all trolls—those above you treating you as lesser—and those below you treating you with distrust and suspicion and hate. You’re too high for them, too low for a true Highblood, and for the first time in some you’re reminded of how it had burned you, caused you to strive to rise above your caste and prove that you were better than them all, better than anyone else who dared to do what you did.

When you return, it’s with regret.

Things are different. The Highblood is the farthest thing from a fool, and he sees that, and the fact that his first reaction rises from a desire to protect you, to discover what's wrong, hurts you. His suspicion is still there, true, but it's not the only emotion, and it hurts because you know him as you do, but even more than that you know he is wrong and bloodthirsty just as you have been, but you are still flushed for him, and he for you.

You are not the only one who is different, and you don’t know what to think at first, but instead you sink your hands into the connection between the two of you, determined to use if for what good you can, if nothing else.

(It hurts now, to betray him, but you’re not foolish enough to think that he might understand what you have come to find. The troll who spoke to you of what had happened, showed you her paintings and you remember the image of your love, as terrifying as he must have been to the smaller troll, and you were reminded of what he truly is and the threat that he possesses.)

A seadweller comes to the court of the Messiahs. You’re there, watching and waiting on the orders of the Highblood. The seadweller doesn’t even look your way, and again, you’re reminded again of what you are to the higher castes. You’ve heard rumors of the Orphaner Dualscar, and his attention certainly isn’t something that you desire. You’ve been lucky to escape the notice of most seadwellers until now, and you’d much prefer to avoid their attention, especially now with the views that you’ve come to hold. They wouldn’t let you live, you’re sure of that. 

(Would the Highblood simply kill you if he knew? Or would there be a worse fate, a drawn out torture and slow extinguishing of your life? He would draw out the secrets that you’d hidden for so long, and you doubt that you’d be able to hide them under the full force of his chucklevoodos. You suspect that it would be the latter, but you will not allow that to stop you from doing what you know to be right. )

The Highblood asks the Orphaner for a joke. You’re still standing at attention. The words that pass between them are a mystery to you, but the no longer sickening and all too familiar sound of the crunch of a club on bones and the ensuing splatter of blood is the farthest thing from unknown. You’ll admit, you’re surprised that the Highblood would so readily kill a seadweller, but looking at the walls reminds you that he’s not the first, perhaps just the first that you’ve known of. The Church of the Messiahs respects none but the Empress, and this event will serve as a reminder of such.

Whatever he said, the Highblood is angry, and you can see that. He laughs at the death before him, and the others present mimic his actions, but you remain silent, observing. The Highblood takes a book from the body of the now dead troll, tugging it gracelessly out of the mess of limbs and blood, then approaches you. You straighten your spine, evenly looking at him as the book is thrust towards you. The violently violet blood that now stains it looks to be some obstacle in reading it, but you take it either way, waiting for the Highblood to speak.

When he does, his voice is strained, barely a growl.

“Find her.”

His hand pushes you towards the door, shoving you along, and you move. You’d rather not deal with his fury now—there’ll be time to debate later, in private,  and you never have the patience to deal with his fits of anger and violence. That’s far from your quadrant, and you dismiss his actions in your mind as you leave the room, retreating to the quarters that serve as your rooms when you reside in the temple of the Messiahs.

The book seems to initially be little more than smutty literature, a tale of a seadweller and his kismesis in embarrassing detail, but as you continue another detail emerges, of a now rare jadeblooded troll, one taken as a slave after—

You have to put the book down. You have to lay it on the ground to the side of where you’ve taken your seat, searching for the hidden pocket that holds the pendant that you found nearly a sweep ago. Taking it out, you hold it in your hand so tightly that it bites into the fabric of your gloves, pinching uncomfortably, and you think with pity of the fate that befell the Mother, the one who’d tried so hard to raise the troll born without a sign. You would weep if you could, but somewhere in your heart you can’t find the ability to do so.

Another troll abused by the system that you strive to protect. Another life destroyed by the ruling castes, another individual who was forced into things that you wish you didn’t have to know.

You don’t want to read the rest of the book.

You don’t want to read the rest of the meticulously written pages, but you do. You read the records of the Pirate and how she’d come, and what had undoubtedly been done to the jadeblooded slave, and a fury burns in your heart at the thought of it all, because it is simply so wrong and should never have happened, shouldn’t have been this way. It’s now that you notice the blood from the book that’s stained your gloves and you peel them off, tossing them aside, standing quickly. The blood rushes to your head and you’re dizzy for a moment, knees shaking like you’re a wriggler again, and then you force yourself to move, glancing about the room before finding a bottle of Faygo, undoubtedly left behind by the Highblood, opening it and sniffing it for a fraction of a moment before guzzling what’s left, desperate to erase the tension and distress in your mind for a moment.

It doesn’t do much. The taste is every bit as disgusting as you remember, and you’re reminded again of why you despise the taste, tossing the bottle aside before sliding down to sit again, knees pushed up against your chest. It’s a few moments before you realize that you’re shaking, and in a moment of weakness you wish that your lusus was here, still with you, but she’s gone, far away, barely keeping in touch with the occasional brush of her mind. You feel for her now, and it’s a moment before she responds, concern evident, but you don’t know what to say, or how to do anything.

You simply sit, pendant still clutched in your bare hand, trying to forget what you’ve seen, what you know, what you were party to in other situations. It makes you sick—or maybe that’s simply the Faygo. An hour, maybe longer, passes before you force yourself to stand, tossing the bloody gloves away and pulling a mostly pristine pair from your sylladex to replace them. After a moment of hesitation, you place the pendant there in place of them, pulling the long gloves on carefully. The blood on the book is mostly dry now, but you’re more careful as you pick it up, forcing yourself to move to a desk where you sit it, then you open it and continue to read, forcing down your nausea at the details with the same expert care that you’ve used to push down your regrets and concerns for years.

The tale isn’t anything new—kismesis’s fighting, and a lowblood caught between them, but this one—the Dolorosa—deserved better and so much more than this.

Mindfang—a pirate you’ve only heard in passing—is a good part of the problem here. Dualscar was as well, but for reasons beyond you, the Highblood has killed him, and if Mindfang is still alive, then she would be the one that the Highblood had been referring to when he ordered her to track the troll down, and with the information and charts in this book, you recognize that you have a good chance of discovering her location. With your lusus at your side, it would be doable, easy even, to kill her, but you remind yourself that it isn’t that simple. If you kill her, the monster of a troll that she is, then you’re no worse than she, and a part of you rebels at that thought. You will not be like her, and you will not be like them, senselessly killing.

You will take her down, but you will do so correctly and you will use the code of law that you’ve dedicated your life to, broken as it is, and you will prove to them all that a tealblood can and will do this, that you will be more than able to take someone above your station and try her, and then they will see what you and your caste, of those who are lower, are capable of. You will show them through your actions, and you will strive to continue where the Signless was unable to.

When the Highblood does come to your chambers, you have completely composed yourself and the buzz of the faygo is very nearly gone. He is composed as well, and you nod to him, holding the book tightly.

“I can find her.” You nod to him. “When would you have me leave?”

He doesn’t respond, moving instead to embrace you, holding you tightly, and even as you’d rather reject the comfort, you accept it nonetheless, allowing yourself to hold him for a moment. He doesn’t release you at first, tightly squeezing you again. Something is wrong, and you can tell that from his actions, but when he does release you, any hint of doubt is gone from his face and he is the Highblood again, more than a simple troll, more than the one that you’re flushed for.

You understand it and you know what you need to do.

He tells you to go now, to take your lusus, and you do, not another word to him.

The Marquise is hidden well. You take the ways that have been charted, the things that the seadweller recorded, and you use them and follow them and you’re far from alone because your lusus is there with you and your thoughts.

She doesn’t think much of your troubles with what you know of the redblooded heretic, the mutant that once was and why you can’t stand the laws that you’re meant to stand for as they are now and why you can’t stand for them without striving to change them. She sees things as far simpler, but she is a product of her evolution just as you were, and you will not make her change, and she respects what you think because she is your caretaker, and she still cares for you more than any others ever have.

She strengthens your mind when you face the Marquise, waiting when she approaches the docks. Between the waves and the rain and the sleet she’s there, and then there’s blue blood staining the deck and the troll’s arm is gone and you have _won._ You have done it, bested the higherblooded troll, and you have done your duty. It would be within your right and your orders to kill her now, but you force her to her feet, calling your lusus to carry her away, bleeding badly but alive and you take her in, choose to follow the laws that are given to make them into what they should be. She will die after her trial, but you will not let her die without one.

You visit her once, in her cell, bloody and intense and she tries to kiss you, but you reject her, moving back because that is not your duty, and where you once would have risen to the challenge that she brings, you are filled with a determination to see her death justly that will not be stopped by potential fires of passion.

It’s easy to dismiss her now. She’s beaten, you’ve won.

_The Highblood hasn’t summoned you. He would have sent a message if he was free, if it was possible for the two of you to meet, but he has not. The trial is tomorrow._

You’re proud when you enter the court block. You see the lowbloods, not a second thought given to their presence and number, because this is your moment and if you imagine, you can feel the pendant that hangs from your neck, hidden beneath your uniform. You have done what they said you could not, and you have done it as right as you could with the laws that you have. They will see you as an example, and you will make things better.

You don’t notice the look on the Marquise’s face as you sentence her till the last moment, caught up in your pride, and when you do, you feel the first hand on your boot, tugging you down while another grasps at your cane.  The first troll is kicked away swiftly, the second battered with your cane, but the third, the fourth, the fifth even—they catch you, pulling you down and you can’t seem to fight them and you desperately wonder where your lusus is, what is happening—

The Marquise is standing before you the next that you know, and you’ve been shoved down to your knees before the rope that would have hung her, and in a moment of desperate irrelevant panic, you realize that your pendant has fallen free, hanging in the open for all to see, and the hands that are holding you down seem a lesser problem to the one that you know will have arisen from its appearance.

They will kill you.

If you do not die here, at the hand of the Marquise, then they will kill you, slowly and torturously, just as you’d helped them do to others in the sweeps before. There will be no mercy. You do not doubt that, and you know that your love—your matesprit will be the one to do it, because even now you know him, and you have no doubt of the bounds of his cruelty.

The Marquise doesn’t offer any words, and your breath is slipping from your mouth too fast and the colors are blurring as the hands lift you again, a rope rough against your neck as they hold you there, the hands of the trolls that she is controlling the only thing preventing you from falling, and your breath is still coming far too fast for you to move, and panic fills your lungs as the Marquise nods to you and then—

A moment. Falling. A pain that’s both sharp and merciful, something that ends you quickly and more kindly than anyone else would have and everything simply stops.

  

**Author's Note:**

> I might edit a few things. Pls tell me if there are typos--I wasn't sure about a few of the Alternian terms.


End file.
